ION Publications

Validation of a Space Mission Oriented INS/GNSS Navigator through Utilization of UAVs

M. Wis, M. Kerr, A. Latorre, G. Vecchione

Abstract:

In recent years UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) have gained a lot of attention for their flexibility to different environments. One of the applications of this technology is the validation of experimental technologies. In project PERIGEO this concept has been deeply exploited: the project was coordinated by Deimos Space and consisted in the development and exploitation of experimental technologies for space applications validated through a series of test flights performed with UAVs. One of the developments implemented under PERIGEO was an INS/GNSS multi-mission hybrid filter navigator named DAHNA (Deimos Advanced Hybrid NAvigator). This navigator implements a classical loosely coupled architecture in an Iterative Extended Kalman Filter that has been developed in Simulink. The purpose of developing this navigator in Simulink was to enable its inclusion in the simulated environment that emulates a set of selected space missions, as a means to facilitate the rapid prototyping / adaptation of the filter for each mission or configuration. Another purpose of DAHNA is to use it with real observations from GNSS and IMU instruments both in real-time applications and post-processed, as will be shown below. DAHNA has been successfully autocoded to different hardware platforms (ARM and LEON3) maintaining the required level of performances.
This paper shows the results that have been obtained with DAHNA under the different scenarios considered in project PERIGEO both with simulated and real datasets. The results are also compared with the ones obtained with INTEGRA, a robust hybridized INS navigator also developed in the frame of project PERIGEO based on previous legacy developments, that has been used as benchmark.
These results demonstrate that DAHNA can perform navigation in different scenarios and configurations, operating both in off-line and real-time modes with simulated and real measurement using the same calculus core developed in Simulink and in different HW platforms, without having to perform important changes.

Published in:

Proceedings of the 29th International Technical Meeting of The Satellite Division of the Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS+ 2016)
September 12 - 16, 2016
Oregon Convention Center Portland, Oregon